AMLC: Sara-Rodrigo joint account had P18.9-M transactions

An account jointly owned by Vice President Sara Duterte and her father, former President Rodrigo Duterte, recorded two transactions totaling P18.9 million, according to Anti-Money Laundering Council (AMLC) records presented before the Senate impeachment court Monday.

AMLC Secretariat Executive Director Ronel Buenaventura identified the transactions as the House prosecution presented financial records in support of its allegation that the Vice President amassed unexplained wealth.

The first was an 8 April 2013 over-the-counter transaction amounting to P9,109,644.80, with a corresponding foreign-currency amount of $221,322.76.

“So this account po is owned by former President Rodrigo Duterte and Vice President Sara Duterte,” Buenaventura said.

He clarified that the peso and dollar figures represented the same transaction and should not be added together. The AMLC record identified USD as the foreign exchange code but did not indicate whether the actual withdrawal was made in pesos or dollars.

“But I cannot say, Your Honor, whether this was withdrawn over the counter in peso or in dollars, Your Honor. It doesn’t appear on the record,” Buenaventura said.

The second transaction, dated 9 March 2011, involved the same account and was recorded at P9,785,744.55, with a corresponding foreign-currency amount of $225,581.94.

Unlike the 2013 transaction, it was coded as a debit memo. Buenaventura said the AMLC record did not specify what the debit memo represented. The two transactions had a combined peso value of P18,895,389.35.

27 confidential reports

Separate AMLC records read in court showed that Duterte “was the subject of suspicion in 27 confidential reports” filed by banks and other covered institutions from 2 August 2024, to 29 January 2026. The reports cited drug trafficking, graft and malversation as suspected offenses.

According to the AMLC's confidential information-sharing report, some of the drug-related reports involving Duterte were triggered by the 2024 House Quad Committee hearings into the drug war under her father’s administration.

Other reports were triggered by news reports alleging that her husband, lawyer Manases “Mans” Carpio, was involved in the 2017 shipment of P6.4 billion worth of shabu. Carpio was himself the subject of 17 confidential reports from 2017 to 2025, according to the AMLC records.

The AMLC's financial intelligence report on Sara Duterte listed drug trafficking and graft as “associated predicate crimes”—offenses that the AMLC links to possible money laundering.

The report's narrative also recounted allegations raised by former senator Antonio Trillanes IV during the House hearings, including his claim that Rodrigo Duterte protected drug personalities, among them an individual identified as Davao businessman and longtime Duterte associate Sammy Uy.

Former senator Antonio Trillanes IV has repeatedly alleged that Uy was involved in the illegal drug trade and that money from him reached members of the Duterte family.

In April, Buenaventura told a congressional panel that 18 transactions cited by Trillanes matched transactions in AMLC records, including three that Trillanes had identified as alleged “Sammy Uy payouts” to Sara Duterte and her family.